Dr. Spillman, the Mad Chemist
Heyo! It’s been a more eventful week this time, and I hope I don’t put you all to sleep with my bore-tastic emails. That’s a made-up word but spellcheck doesn’t stop me. Then again, it never did. Anywho, this past week has been a grand ol’ time. We spend almost every day meeting new people in the church, meeting with and teaching people that are interested, and tracting houses.
An important thing that I need to bring up is that in Oklahoma, there are Okie-talkers. Okie-talkers are people from Oklahoma that, to put it nicely, DON’T SHUT UP. Straight up they will just ramble on and on and on, making sure that for the majority of the conversation, they are talking. It’s a literal struggle to interject anything. You have to basically wait like you’re having an old West duel at high noon. The MILLISECOND they give you a gap, you just gotta shoot for it. 9 times outta 10 they don’t give 2 hoots that you want to communicate, and will just keep talking, but sometimes, the heavens will part and angels will come down and just clamp their flapping lips shut long enough to teach them another 3% of the lesson. Luckily not everyone is like that, and fall into some level of Okie-talk that is below that. But still, you will ask people questions about what they think of what we just taught them and then it’s like a time warp and we end up with someone telling us how he once accidentally adopted a flock of doves. It’s a wild place here.
Another great thing is the wind. There are no mountains, and I’m pretty sure this is the birthplace of all flat-Earth theorists out there. There is nothing as far as the eye can see. And that’s where the wind comes in. Have you ever had to pedal harder, just so you can go DOWNHILL? Well, we get to do that, EVERY SINGLE DAY YEEHAW. But then there are times when you just evolve into a human kite because the wind is rocketing you across the cosmos.
There are also people here that we call “Bible Bashers” and they have no intention of listening to your message and do all they can to try to put you down and prove you wrong. It’s like arguing with a 6-year-old. They say something that doesn’t make sense, out of context, and then refuse to listen to the explanation. But yeah, so I got bashed and that was a fun time. Won’t be the last time, either.
Also, Oklahoma people here are like, all ex-military. We were getting a ride from this 80-something-year-old veteran and he just casually brings up being a special ops agent. Like. Bruh?? Then the times he almost missed the helicopter out of enemy territory and would’ve been tortured for information. Also was a prisoner of war for 7 years. And then goes on to say how hard missionary work is. And we’re just like, “Homie, you straight nearly died on a DAILY BASIS; missionary work looks like planting roses next to that. Sure there are hard times, but we’re not about to die in those hard times.”
But that leads into my next story, where we were getting dinner with this cool member in the ward. We ask him what he does, and by the end we had learned he was an ex-military nurse hypnotist engineer. But anywho, we’re sitting there and Elder Marler and I are on one side and he’s doinking around and dipping his straw in ranch, and then wiping the ranch off on the ice cubes in his cup. And then, Elder Spillman got a bloody nose. He gets them quite a lot, which really sucks for him, but nothing too far out of the ordinary. So naturally, the nurse guy was like, “Take this napkin, get it wet, and put it up your nose.” UNFORTUNATELY for Elder Spillman, he chose to dip his napkin in the glass of water that HAD THE RANCH. So Elder Marler and I are just chilling in our front row seats of the show, watching Elder Spillman rubbing his napkin in ranch and water. And then once he got it all ranched up, he proceeds to SHOVE THE RANCH NAPKIN ROIGHT UP HIS SNIFFER! To this day he doesn’t know that was what happened.
Then this other time we were biking around and Elder Spillman got another bloody nose, so we go to this rando house and knock on the door. This big guy wearing shades answers the door, and just asks, “You guys got my food?” And of course we’re like, “Not quite, we’re just looking for some napkins or something to help his bloody nose.” And then his response after he JUST heard us say that is, “Yeah you can just bring it in and put it on the counter.” So we have to run the facts by him AGAIN so he understands that the three guys wearing white shirts and ties aren’t delivering his pizza. This guy was either a blind and partially deaf old man, or HIGH AS A KITE. And we still don’t know which one it is. But he did give us paper towels, which was very generous.
Now I’ll only include one more story because this email is getting LANKY. So this story starts out like any mission story from any Elder does, with one of their companions finding a rusty machete. Elder Spillman had found this serial killer lookin’ blade THING out in the fire pit at our house, and brought it inside. He didn’t like that it looked so ghetto, so he decided to clean off the rust and make it a new handle. The handle was basically wrapping medical tape around it, and it turned out not too bad, but then it came time to clean the blade. Elder Spillman likes blades and knows quite a bit about them, but when it comes to cleaning them, he is, shall we say, lacking. So he announces that he’s gonna clean it and goes to find stuff in the garage. I see him come back through, arms full, and hurry into the bathroom. I was half paying attention because I was writing in my journal at the time, but from what I glimpsed, I saw bleach, Tide laundry detergent, and lighter fluid. But when I see my companion enter a small, enclosed space (like a bathroom) with two of the three ingredients to make mustard gas, you kinda start to worry. So I sneak a peek as to what he’s making in there, and I look in and see him with a sliced-open hand warmer packet in his hand. I ask him if he actually KNOWS how to clean a rusty blade, and he’s just got the power of optimism, bravery, and stupidity on his side as he admits to never having done this before in his life. So I just leave, because I’m writing in my journal already, and I’m not gonna stop him, so I might as well just start on my will that same night. But 30 seconds after Alfred Nobel has started the concoction of catastrophe, it started to smell like someone was smoking exhaust pipe fumes. So I’m just like, “Yeah, no.” And booked it outta there while wishing Elder Spillman the best of luck. After a good two minutes of journal writing, he emerges from his laboratory, with his various chemicals, simply returning them to the garage. He goes back and closes the door and takes a seat on his bed, going about business as usual. When I ask how well it works, he just said it didn’t and we accepted that as truth and didn’t go back into that room until the next day.
I don’t know if I talked about this, but our toilet will just, SCREAM for 30 seconds after you flush it all Moaning Myrtle style.
Shoot golly, this email is really long, sorry for that, but thanks for all the support, and I’ll be moving soon, so don’t send me any packages. I hope you guys all have a great time doing whatever it is that you’re doing, and I’ll keep doing what I do.
Over and Out